A Handover Method Between a Preferred Base Station and Alternatives Base Stations

1. A method of operating a first base station apparatus for transferring a wireless communication connection with a wireless appliance from the first base station apparatus to one of a set of second base station apparatuses comprising at least a preferred base station apparatus and an alternative base station apparatus wherein the method comprises: receiving a signal quality report from the wireless appliance, selecting the preferred base station apparatus using the signal quality report, sending a first transfer request to the preferred base station apparatus, wherein the first transfer request comprises the signal quality report, receiving a first transfer request reply from the preferred base station apparatus, wherein the first transfer request reply comprises either a transfer acknowledgement message or a transfer cancel message, wherein the selection between the transfer acknowledgement message and the transfer cancel message is made using the signal quality report, sending a first connection reconfiguration request to the wireless appliance if the first transfer request reply comprises the transfer acknowledgement message, wherein the first connection reconfiguration request instructs the wireless appliance to shift the wireless communication connection from the first base station apparatus to the preferred base station apparatus, receiving a first release command from the preferred base station apparatus if the first connection reconfiguration request was sent, terminating the wireless communication connection with the wireless appliance if the first release command is received, sending a second transfer request to the alternative base station apparatus if the first transfer request reply comprises the transfer cancel message, receiving a second transfer request reply from the alternative base station apparatus if the second transfer request was sent, wherein the first transfer request reply comprises either the transfer acknowledgement message or the transfer cancel message, sending a second connection reconfiguration request to the wireless appliance if the second transfer request reply comprises the transfer acknowledgement message, wherein the second connection reconfiguration request instructs the wireless appliance to shift the wireless communication connection from the first base station apparatus to the alternative base station apparatus, receiving a second release command from the alternative base station appliance if the second connection reconfiguration request was sent, terminating the wireless communication connection with the wireless appliance if the second release command is received or a first internal timer expires, wherein the signal quality report comprises a quality rating of the wireless communication connection between the wireless appliance and each of the second base station apparatuses, wherein the first transfer request reply specifies which of the second base station apparatuses is the alternative base station apparatus.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the wireless communication connection between the alternative base station apparatus and the wireless appliance has the second highest quality rating and/or wherein the wireless communication connection between the preferred base station apparatus and the wireless appliance has the highest quality rating.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the preferred base station apparatus and/or the alternative base station apparatus is selected using a trained evaluation module which uses the signal quality report for the selection, wherein the trained evaluation module is configured to be trained using training data, and wherein the training data is any one of the following: generated by a self-learning mechanism based on specific cell border locations from successive communication failures or rapid handover requests, manually created training data, and simulated training data.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the signal quality report comprises a location identifier for mapping the location of the wireless appliance, and wherein the trained evaluation module uses the location identifier for selecting the preferred base station apparatus and/or the alternative base station apparatus.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein if the first transfer request reply comprises the transfer cancel message the first transfer request comprises a cause value indicating the reason for the transfer cancel message and/or a base station apparatus identifier that identifies the alternative base station apparatus.

6. The method of claim 3 , the method further comprising: generating a set of training data using the signal quality report and the first transfer request reply, updating the trained evaluation module using the set of training data.

7. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine readable medium embodying machine executable instructions which when executed causes a processor to perform the method of claim 1 on a base station apparatus.

8. A method of operating a second base station apparatus for receiving a transfer of a wireless communication connection with a wireless appliance from a first base station apparatus, wherein the method comprises: receiving a first transfer request from the first base station apparatus, wherein the first transfer request comprises a signal quality report, wherein the signal quality report is generated using a quality rating of the wireless communication connection between the wireless appliance and each base station apparatus within communication range of the wireless appliance, generating a first transfer request reply using a trained evaluation module using the signal quality report of the first transfer request, wherein the first transfer request reply comprises either a transfer acknowledgement message or a transfer cancel message, sending the first transfer request reply to the first base station apparatus, receiving a first connection reconfiguration complete message from the wireless appliance if the first transfer request reply comprise the transfer acknowledgement message, establishing the wireless communication connection with the wireless appliance if the first connection reconfiguration complete message was received, sending a context release to the first base station apparatus if the first connection reconfiguration complete message was received, wherein if the first transfer request reply comprises a transfer cancel message the first transfer request reply comprises a base station apparatus identifier that identifies an alternative base station apparatus.

9. The method of claim 8 , the method further comprising: monitoring the wireless communication connection for a predetermined period of time for a communication change event, generating a set of training data using the signal quality report and the first transfer request reply if the communication change event occurs within the predetermined period of time, training the trained evaluation module using the set of training data, wherein the communications change event is any one of the following: the loss of radio communication, the reception of a second signal quality report from the wireless appliance indicating that the wireless communication connection with the wireless appliance should be transferred to a different base station apparatus, the loss of the wireless communication connection, the loss of signal strength for the wireless communication connection, and the corruption of data in the signal of the corresponding wireless communication channel.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein if the first transfer request reply comprises the transfer cancel message the first transfer request comprises a cause value indicating the reason for the transfer cancel message.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the signal quality report comprises global navigation satellite system data which provides the location of the wireless appliance and/or wherein the signal quality report comprises measurement data of the beam forming method used by base station apparatuses for forming the wireless communication connection and/or wherein the trained evaluation module is configured for using the signal quality report to map a location and direction of travel of the wireless application for the purpose of generating the first transfer request reply.

12. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine readable medium embodying machine executable instructions which when executed causes a processor to perform the method of claim 8 on a base station apparatus.